Daybreak
by Elfin22
Summary: Sometimes the choices you make break your heart; sometimes the world conspires to destroy you. The natural world isn’t an easy place, but life is precious and beautiful and infinitely worth living. Eventually Bella/Jacob, but there’s a lot more going on.


WARNING

_WARNING!! Do not read this author's note if you have not read Breaking Dawn!!_

_Okay guys. This story takes place after Eclipse- so far as it's concerned Breaking Dawn never, ever happened. This is how I would have preferred it to be, because I had a small scale nervous breakdown over the book. Please don't flame me for hating Breaking Dawn, and please remember that if you wanted the absolutely perfect happy Bella/Edward ending you actually got that in the book, which is 10,000x better than having a fanfiction go your way!! _

_I wanted Breaking Dawn to be about sacrifice and choices, about growing up, right vs. wrong and free will. I wanted it to be about choosing a healthy love instead of an obsessive one and about choosing life instead of death. About being your own person and not defining yourself by others. So I was devastated- though I'm happy for all of you who liked the book, and glad you didn't suffer like I did ____ This story is my personal coping mechanism. I can't write the epic I was hoping for so this is a different sort of story. I might end up using a bit of information from the last book, if it's useful, but that's all. _

_If you read this story please review!! I love to hear what people think and it encourages me to keep writing. I have a few chapters written already so the more reviews I get the faster I'll probably update (of course, that's only an incentive to review if you like the story I guess ____ ) Constructive criticism is always welcome but please no flames- they would hurt my feelings. No copyright infringement is intended by this story, and all the characters belong entirely to Stephenie Meyer. _

**Chapter 1**

The ring on my left hand glittered in the faint afternoon sunlight, an unsubtle reminder of the man I loved and the promise I had made to him. In three weeks I would be married, an unnerving circumstance I tried not to think about too much. I wasn't afraid of the commitment- my entire life was about Edward. But I couldn't help but cringe away from the stares constantly sent my way. The gossip mill had started turning the second the first neighbor caught a glimpse of my ring. People whispered among themselves about Chief Swan's only daughter who was marrying her boyfriend right out of high school. They looked at each other knowingly, casting speculative glances at my flat stomach.

Even though I was planning to completely abandon the human world in a month I still withdrew from their stares and whispers. I hated being the center of attention, and people could say the most awful things when they thought you were out of hearing distance, consistently underestimating the carrying power of their shrill voices. I wasn't spending much time with anyone other than Edward and Charlie though, so at least I didn't have to deal with the gazes too often.

Edward was at house as a concession towards the unusually mild weather. I had needed to come to the grocery store- in three weeks I would be leaving Charlie to fend for himself in the kitchen, and I was trying to fend off his eventual malnutrition with a series of excellent meals. It was the least- the very least- I could do in exchange for the massive pain I would soon put him through. His only child would be dead to him because she couldn't live without her mythological fiancée, turned into something that would kill him without hesitation to satisfy her own monstrous thirst if given the opportunity. For so long I had simply ignored the sacrifices I would have to make to become like Edward, glossed over the intensity of the pain I would inflict upon the few human people in the world who knew and loved me. Even now I was worried that perhaps the full extent of the loss wouldn't hit me until the last moments. I knew that my human memories would fade after my transformation, dulling my pain, but right now it seemed even sadder that I would soon forget everything I now was. Especially since my parents wouldn't forget… and neither would Jacob.

"Careful, honey, you'll hit that girl's car with your cart." A husky voice interrupted my thoughts. I jumped and spun, irrational hope immediately blossoming in response to the deep voice and standard endearment. A smiling man in his mid-thirties rolled his eyes at me in a friendly way while his pretty blond wife, looking a little distracted, grabbed her grocery cart before it rolled into my flashy black Mercedes. The man's expression became a little horrified as he took in what I was driving, probably imagining what it would cost to repair a dent in the door. In that moment, as I was choking back bitter disappointment that threatened to overflow in tears, he could have taken a baseball bat to the taillights and I wouldn't have cared. I hated the stupid car anyway- it just made people stare harder and longer. I waved off the man's stuttered apology about the close call without interest as they got into their car and left.

I was being stupid, I reminded myself. Jacob wasn't here- of course he wasn't! He was running around the continent in his wolf form, the boy I loved disappearing into deep woods and animal instincts. I had driven him away by loving him too much and by not loving him enough. My best friend in the world- the best friend anyone had ever had- and I had completely destroyed him because I had refused to do something as basic as stay alive so I could be there for him. The tightness in my chest was like having a wrestler sitting on it, crushing the breath from my body.

I had been standing in the parking lot without getting into my car for a curiously long time, but as yet no one had noticed. I watched the people coming and going, gathering the sustenance they need to preserve the lives they found precious. They collected poultry and vegetables, milk and bread, content to stand in ordered lines until the cashier rang up their purchases. To my right an old couple tottered by, carrying a single grocery bag between them. Getting out of a flashy red sports car, probably just stopping for an energy drink and cigarettes on her way to Seattle was a polished business woman in a tailored suit and perilously high heels. Exiting the store was a pretty, slim young woman dressed in khakis, two bags in one hand while the other balanced her black haired toddler on her hip.

There were so many lives, so much energy and purpose. I wondered why I had never felt connected to the cycle which governed the existence of others. Was I too different, too bizarre to find my place in the normal human dramas? Was there something broken in me that I found it so hard to care about normal people? Was it carelessness, snobbishness or selfishness, or was it something less fundamental, something I could have fixed if I had had enough time? Would I have found a place in the normal world where I felt accepted and happy? Could I have built the relationships which would have bound me irrevocably to a mortal life?

I didn't know the answers to these questions, and realized that I probably never would. But after all, my place in the human world probably wouldn't have been anything extraordinary. I wasn't brilliant or talented or even ambitious- most days were considered a success if I didn't need stitches or a cast. Before I had moved to Forks and met Edward I had spent most of my time in Phoenix taking care of my mother and reading books. Had it been those countless tales of fiction which had prepared me to accept the most bizarre realities imaginable? Had it been my earlier years of excessive responsibility and intense shyness which made it so hard even now to let people close enough to really care about them?

I really needed to stop it with all the questions- they were getting out of control. But it did bother me a little that I didn't seem to know any of the answers. Maybe, I allowed, I should have spent a little more time gaining a grasp of who I was. But it was too late to be bothered about that now- in a month I would be a different person, powerful and dead and thirsty. I would have an eternity to learn about the person I would become. An eternity to spend with Edward, bought at a high price but not too high for its value.

Charlie was furious about my engagement, though after his first outburst he'd been largely silent about it. My mother was worried but also not as vocal as I had expected. She had told me once when Edward and I visited that I oriented myself around him as though we belonged in a single gravitational pull, adjusting my position to be alignment with his. She'd mentioned this observation quietly when I called tell her about my engagement, sadly I had thought. My mother believed strongly in independence, which was a little ironic since she had never really been able to take care of herself. Probably she was worried that I was too wound up in Edward's existence to be properly aware of my own. Because of course she couldn't understand that Edward and I were bound together so tightly that real differentiations between us were unnecessary. I was his and he was mine.

My parents obviously weren't the only ones who didn't understand. Even the more kindly citizens of Forks spoke of my engagement with regret. Edward and I had run into Angela's mother at the church's used book sale last week, and as we had walked away I had heard her say sadly to her friend "They're so terribly young- they can't possibly understand what they're giving up, how hard it will be. In ten years, or even five, they'll really be grown up and be completely different people who'll want completely different things. But try to tell children they're not adults… it's a lesson they can only learn the hard way."

I had smiled at her lack of comprehension, but Edward's face had tightened for a moment. I had thought perhaps that at 110 years old he resented the implication that he wasn't old enough to know his own mind. But after a few seconds he had relaxed and smiled my favorite crooked smile. "She underestimates your maturity" he said decidedly.

"18 going on 40" I had quipped, adjusting my mother's old joke about her middle-aged teenage daughter.

But I suppose that I didn't feel forty years old standing in the weak afternoon sunlight, in a standard grocery store parking lot next to an impossibly expensive car. I felt very much eighteen, scared of the dangerous future I had chosen but determined towards my goal. I felt confused and sad though, to find myself so curious about lifestyles I had never felt much interest in before. Jacob had made me face what I would lose, refusing to let me make my last human decision blinded by the intensity of infatuation. He had made me see that I could have a full human life, and that maybe I could have been happy without Edward if I had never met Edward. But we had met, and that was that. Nothing in the natural ever had a chance of holding me away. I wasn't sorry for it.

Still, a final question resounded in my head, fluttering as light and as persistent as the breeze.

"Who are you, Isabella Swan?"

But at least to this question I had an answer. "I'm the girl who loves Edward Cullen, and the girl Edward Cullen loves."

"Not much of an answer" the little voice scoffed, before disappearing back into insubstantiality.

But the voice was wrong. It was the best answer, the only answer. It was my own personal miracle.


End file.
